


Free Will

by jendavis



Series: Coming Right Along [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-07
Updated: 2011-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jendavis/pseuds/jendavis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Final installment in the Coming Right Along Series.  Contains spoilers for 5x04 and 6x20.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Free Will

When an angel takes a human vessel, the vessel _knows_. Permission needs to be granted. And even if it does feel like riding on a comet, the vessel is still _aware_ enough to register it, to remember it later. Sometimes, the angel wants hamburgers.

There are a thousand ways an angel can leave the vessel, and even a few that don't take the vessel down with it. Not many, though. Most of the time, the angel doesn't have the capacity to care, and really, it's better that way. It's so much better that the vessel doesn't remember all that lack of caring from something they'd probably prayed to. The more merciful angels leave their minds blown so far apart that the memory is lost.

But when a god-or, well, let's shorthand it, we're all grownups here- when _God_ takes a vessel- when capital G _God_ comes down slumming, he doesn't need to ask permission. He doesn't need to share anything of himself with his vessel. He doesn't need to make himself known.

But he doesn't need to screw up something he spent so much time making, either. When all is said and done, when God's work on Earth is finished, it's easier to remove the vessel from the mortal plane than it is to leave him still standing, reeling from the shock, aware of the loss of what he'd carried, of what he'd been.

But sometimes, wars get started in his absence, and as it turns out, a god's work is never done.

\---

Chuck blinks, and he exists again, his fingers twitching to write the story, write the words, but it's an old habit. This time around, he's not writing the story. He's changing it.

\---

Castiel is in the unending Tuesday afternoon garden of an autistic man who can't remember drowning, and he's begging for a sign. He doesn't know that Chuck's here, yet. And truthfully, Chuck doesn't _need_ to be here.

On a shifted plane, there is, was, wasn't, will never be, will always be another Castiel who suffers almost this badly, begging this painfully as he feels his brothers and sisters leaving him behind as his humanity begins to take over. Cas, who Chuck comforts, comforted, will never and will always comfort.

Castiel knows this, though, just as he knows right now that _here_ , in this autistic man's heaven, that he is alone.

"So. That's everything. I believe it's what you'd call a tragedy, from the human perspective. But, maybe the human perspective is limited, I don't know."

And the truth is, God's making this up as he goes along, same as the humans and the demons and the angels.

But Castiel is still speaking. He's begging.

"That’s why I'm asking you, father, one last time. Am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right path? You have to tell me, you have to give me a _sign_." His voice breaks again, desperate not to be alone.

Lucifer never loved enough to beg, and the human perspective is useful, here. Castiel is Cas, one grace removed, just as Chuck is God's voice. And Castiel hit it on the head, even if he doesn't know it yet. God is too big to understand it. It's _Chuck_ that's capable of feeling this much pain.

It's the human perspective. _Cruel and capricious_ , he'd said of himself once, but it's only now that he's able to feel it again.

"Give me a sign, because if you don't, I'm gonna ch- I'm gonna do whatever I-" the lost finality in his tone is deafening, but he takes a breath, continues on. "Whatever I must."

Castiel looks up at the sky, searches, and finds nothing. And he hangs his head.

\---

He'd done what he'd thought God wanted. He'd gone to hell for Dean, and he'd prayed for assurance. He'd gone to hell for Sam, and he'd prayed for guidance. He'd helped end the apocalypse, broken every rule in the book, and he'd prayed for forgiveness.

And until now, he'd thought that perhaps there'd been a chance- that maybe he'd found the right path, he'd been so _sure_.

Castiel doesn't even know what he's praying for, any more.

He wonders how long Lucifer prayed once he was crowned the prince of Hell, and tries to imagine the point at which he stopped.

There's a hand on his shoulder, gripping tight, but he already knows. This isn't a sign, this is his punishment. He waits for the pull, the dive into the pit. Lucifer was proud, when God cast him out. He didn't even weep. If Castiel is to follow in Lucifer's footsteps, he might as well try to raise his head.

Chuck's standing in front of him, a sad smile on his face as reaches down to push Castiel's tears back into his skin.

"I don't understand," he hears himself saying, and closes his eyes. He's not fit to stare, and he knows it.

"I know. As far as signs go, I'm a little underwhelming."

\---

Chuck remembers this, how to deflect, make jokes, but he knows that his sense of humor has always been strange. The platypus had always gotten a fair amount of laughs, though Chuck has to cast himself out, hone in on a second grader sitting in her grandmother's kitchen, laughing at her science textbook to be sure.

Castiel isn't laugh at his one-liner, either. He's wrecked, horrified and hopeful and utterly at a loss.

"You-" Castiel's eyes shoot to the ground again, stunned. Chuck can feel his thoughts swirl, can hear every nuance of the debate in his head. Castiel doesn't know if he should say it. "You came."

There are limits to vessels. His range of options for expressing himself are limited to mere words and actions that still feel paltry, though he's getting the hang of them.

He kisses Castiel's forehead. "You needed me."

It's not much of an explanation- he knows he owes him _so_ much more- but Castiel is sobbing, awe and desperate, horrified, sad relief. He's going to need a minute.

And they both could probably do with a drink.

\---

Chuck sets the bottle back on the table once he's done pouring out two measures, and slides one across before picking up his own. The action is familiar, distant, like a life that never existed, never really ended.

The bar is crowded, full of noise and motion, but the sound doesn't reach them, the air doesn't stir. Nobody seems to notice them, but Castiel wipes his eyes with his hand anyway before picking up his glass.

Now Chuck's here, Castiel has no idea what to say. Maybe it's the vessel, but Chuck doesn't seem to have an answer yet either, he just raises a silent toast and tosses the shot back.

Castiel follows suit, and can't taste a thing.

"I'm sorry," Chuck says after a moment, and there's a shameful surge of pride that causes Castiel to ask.

"For what?"

"Leaving you."

Castiel pours the next round, because he hadn't been expecting an answer, and doesn't know what to do with it now that he has it. Stares at the table until he can talk himself into further presumption. "Did you ever really leave?"

Chuck just shrugs, and looks out at the crowd. It's infuriating, the way the gesture feels like home.

\---

It's hard, but Chuck's written the Word before. He can do it again.

"When the world didn't end, the playbook went out the window. I wasn't needed here, any more." He's not taken aback by Castiel's fury when it comes, but he's surprised the bar's walls are still standing. Even so, he can hear the dangerous unfurling of invisible wings as somewhere, everywhere, the ether shudders.

"Raphael- the others. The _war_. Heaven is being _torn apart_."

"Last year, two boys, an old drunk, a car, and a fallen angel managed the impossible, and all the heavens- every single one of them- took notice. Free will spread throughout _all_ of them, even to the choirs." It's frustrating, to have to explain it, but as human as Castiel could be, he'd never been born into the concept. None of the angels had been. "Every man, woman, angel and demon has a choice. That was kind of the point."

"Millions have died. I've killed brothers and sisters." His voice is quiet, low and angry. Not even a drunken, tired dirty _Cas_ had seemed so utterly human. "And you let it happen. Is _that_ the point?"

"To be fair, I also let it _not_ happen. I don't make the choices any more."

"So you absolve yourself of all of this, then?"

He'd really missed the small warm burn of liquor going down his throat. Chuck savors it completely.

"I absolve _all_ of us."

\---

He'd prayed for absolution more than once, but now that he's got it, Castiel thinks that Chuck can pretty much shove it. The moment he sends the bottle careening off the edge of the table and splashing into a thousand pieces, though, Chuck's put it back like it never even broke, never happened.

Chuck's never been this infuriating, though actually, God usually is.

Even now, when he's sitting right here, across the table. _Especially_ now. He keeps his voice in check, just barely.

"I started this war because I thought it was what _you_ wanted," he says, and they're suddenly a hundred miles and a thousand years away from the bar.

They're on the edge of a cliff, now, a herd of bison are cresting the horizon in the valley below. In a few centuries, this will be called South Dakota, and he doesn't understand why they're here, what they're doing. Any of it it.

"I liked that bar," Chuck explains. "And I'd like to go there again someday."

"Don't change the subject," Castiel frowns. The "please," he adds merely as an afterthought. "I killed my brothers and sisters. I made deals with demons and betrayed my friends, all in hopes of doing what _you_ wanted."

Chuck regards him for a moment, and sits down with his back against a rock. Castiel holds out for a moment when Chuck gestures that he should do the same- it's hardly the most rebellious action he's taken.

And like the rest of them, it seems utterly pointless, now. Chagrined, he sits, and the rock is warm against his back. Chuck still hasn't answered, might _never_ answer, so Cas tries again.

"If everyone is capable of making their own choices… Just tell me why. Why did you bring me back?"

\---

Chuck could say a lot of things, here, about how even though the humans were embracing free will, the angels needed all the help that they could get. About how someone needed to be there to stop it the world from becoming what it had been all over again. He could even point out that Castiel had answered his own question. But that's not all there is to it, and it's not what Cas- _Castiel_ needs to hear.

"Because you love this world, and I love you."

Castiel lets out a frustrated cry, bangs his head back against the rock. His eyes are closed and he's frowning, turning away and trying to keep his face from crumbling. It's almost working. He probably doesn't even realize that he's clutching Chuck's hand, tight.

Chuck doesn't need to see his expression to know that somewhere, in the swirling cacophony of angry thoughts, he's thinking a thousand different things, remembering even more.

Right now he's thinking of a night that didn't happen but did, up in Camp Chitaqua's watchtower. Cas had been ill, he'd been falling for a while already, but he'd asked if Chuck was still receiving the Word. They'd watched fires burning beyond the horizon, and Chuck had broken his heart.

This time, it's just the sunset, but the effect is the same.

\---

"I guess it worked," Castiel doesn't bother hiding the bitterness in his voice. He's exhausted, too tired to fight. "I now have the free will not to believe you."

But he can remember falling, even though it never strictly happened. He remembers what he became, remembers Risa and the others, how Dean gave them all up to reset the future. He remembers the warm buzz of alcohol, the pills he took by the handful.

And remembers Chuck- just _Chuck_ , then, just an ex-prophet- how sometimes he'd been the body that grounded him in his humanity, how sometimes he'd been the last proof that God had even existed.

God had gone, but Chuck had stayed, and he'd loved him for it.

But. God had gone, and Chuck _hadn't_ stayed, too.

"I never really left," Chuck says, now, in a tone that makes it impossible to tell if he's been reading Castiel's thoughts, and the squeeze on his hand might just be to get his attention. But there's a hint of something in his voice, and it sounds almost like contrition. "I just wanted you to have freedom. The old rules are gone, I can't just _make_ you believe me, any more."

 _Bite me_ , Dean's voice is clear in his head.

It's not the first time it's helped Castiel remember what's important. Right now, Dean and Sam and Bobby are fighting the war that _he_ started. There's a war in heaven.

The anger jolts him enough to glare, to shove Chuck's hand away. "The hell you can't."

 _The old rules are gone_.

Chuck holds his gaze for a moment before nodding and breaking into a sudden smile. He glances briefly at the sunset, moves to rise, and when he grabs Castiel's hands again, he's got no choice but to stand with him.

By the time he's on his feet, something's changed.

Castiel doesn't know what's coming next, but for the first time in a long while, he's got faith. It feels a lot like love, like peace

And he's hanging onto it with both hands.

\---

 _Epilogue_

For an instant, every room in every house, every crowded street corner and dusty field rings out with the sound. Everyone thinks they hear it, for only a moment, and most of them aren't even aware that what they're feeling is pure, unadulterated hope. Some will half-remember, though, and others will spend the rest of their lives looking for an answer. In a few days, NASA will report it as an anomaly when the satellites pick it up, and a talk radio host will be the first to insist that it rang out through the layers of heaven.

There are few, though, who know _exactly_ what it is, where it came from.

In a half-empty parking garage in Dayton, Ohio, four bodies scatter for cover, covering their ears as every car window shatters into sand, blasted by the noise.

Sam is the first one to recover, he's the only one to witness the ashen look on Crowley's face, the absolute fear spreading across before he vanishes- utterly- into smoke.

Dean's clucking at the damage to the Impala as he helps Bobby to his feet a moment later, but he's already shaking his head before Sam even asks the question.

"You guys hear- what the hell _was_ that?"

"Search me," he grumbles, as Bobby bats his hands away. "Any ideas?"

"Well, yeah," Bobby frowns, dusting himself off, but he's smiling through his irritation. "But it don't make no goddamned sense. Hand of God, maybe."

"What?" Dean doesn't know why he can feel himself smiling, or why Sam looks like he's about to start laughing.

"More like the _Word_ ," Sam runs a hand through his hair, his eyes still a little wild. "And it _sounded_ like it was saying, _'Crowley. Don't be a dick_."

As he turns to start cleaning the glass out of the Impala, Dean casts another glance around where Crowley had been standing, chasing after edges to catch anything lurking in the corner of his eye, but there's nothing there but ruined cars. Even though he'd been hoping to catch sight of something more, he doesn't need to see it to know it's there.

"Thus spaketh the Lord, huh?"

\---

 _The End_.


End file.
